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Botanic Lab, makers of P C Spes will no longer be in Business
as of June 1 2002. Excessive Government interference,
caused by heavy influence from the giant pharmaceutical companies
wishing to suppress herbal remedies is in part responsible
for taking P C Spes from the thousands who have benefited
from it.
There is one company doing clinical trials on a similar product.
Please keep in mind that there are numerous P C products
out there that are trying to get market share that do not
work.
We will offer a replacement when we feel we have proof of
a beneficial product.-Lloyd Wright
This herbal formula is for treatment of Prostate cancer.
It can be used as a singular treatment or as an adjunct treatment
with current modalities of treatment, (Hormonal, Chemotherapy
and Radiation), and will enhance their anti-cancer effect.
It is undergoing a patient study as a dietary supplement at
New York Medical College (Valhalla, NY). While the complete
study is not finished, PC SPES has had a 100% response rate,
thus far (a lowering of PSA level and reduction of tumor volume).
Its pharmacological actions are summarized below:
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THE DRUG ACTIONS IN LABORATORY FINDING:
The following scientific data is from the laboratory of Dr. Zbigniew Darzynkiewiez M.D., Ph.D., (NIH Merit Fellow) at Cancer Research Institute, Valhalla, NY.
Preliminary experiments provided several interesting observations. The extract from herbs was found to exert potent cytostatic and cytotoxic activity on several tumor cell lines, including
prostatic carcinoma. This in vitro activity is observed at concentrations of the extract which are expected to be achievable in the patients tissues. The tumor cells are initially being
arrested in G phase of their reporductive cycle and then undergo an active cell death, so called “apoptosis.” Interestingly, one of the essential genes which normally protects cells from apoptosis
and thus promotes their survival, bcl-2 gene, is down regulated by treatment with the herbal extract. The observed down regulation suggests that the cells treated with the herbal extract are more
sensitive to other anti-tumor agents. A possibility that the herbal extract may potentiate the anti-tumor activity of other drugs is currently investigated at Cancer Research Institute.
--Taken from the Los Angeles Times, Saturday, October 21, 2000.
Health: formula yields results after other prostate treatments fail. But scientists urge caution on unregulated
medications.
By SHARI ROAN
TIMES HEALTH WRITER
A centuries-old Chinese herbal remedy is showing striking results in treating patients with advanced prostate cancer, even winning support
from doctors despite a lack of federal oversight.
The blend of eight herbs, used by an estimated 10,000 men and sold over the counter, appears to reduce signs of tumor growth in patients who have
exhausted all conventional treatments, according to studies in two well-regarded medical journals. "I can't cite any other example in medicine where we've considered an herbal compound in an
end-stage cancer situation and where other therapies have already failed," said Dr. Aaron E. Katz, an associate professor of urology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
The new studies, including one by Katz, on the effect of the supplement are almost certain to spark widespread demand. Almost 180,000 new cases of prostate cancer are diagnosed each year in the
United States, with 40,000 deaths.
The product's potency, and the likelihood that its use will grow, sharply highlight the disparity between the heavy regulation that traditional drugs undergo and the
virtual absence of regulation of supplements.
"We don't even know what the (supplement's) long-term side effects are," said Dr. Eric J. Small of UC San Francisco, coauthor of the other
new study of the product, sold as PC SPES.
"For (drugs) the United States has extremely stringent regulations that are the envy of the world," said Dr. Ian M. Thompson Jr., chief of
urology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. "But for something like this, we have no oversight."
Accordingly, many unanswered questions about PC SPES
remain: For whom is the remedy best suited? What dose is correct? How does it compare with other treatments?
Physicians are also worried because the supplement carries the risk of
serious side effects. Most common are breast tenderness and enlargement because of herbs that act like estrogen. But 2% to 4% of patients also run the risk of blood clots, a potentially fatal
problem, the studies found.
Because of this risk, Katz and other doctors say the therapy should generally be used only on patients who have not been helped by hormone therapy-even though the
herbal supplement appears to reduce tumor growth in men with any stage or type of prostate cancer.
"This is not for someone in an early stage," Katz said. "We don't have
enough long-term follow up."
In his study of 89 men, published this month in the Journal of Urology, 88% of patients taking the product experienced a significant drop in a protein called
prostate specific antigen, or PSA, which is a marker for tumor growth.
Similar results, reported by Small, will appear in the November issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Although
there have seen a handful of earlier papers on PC SPES, the two new studies are the first to examine the product in a large number of men.
Both studies also found that the herbal remedy reduced
prostate specific antigen levels in men who had received hormone therapy, a standard approach to halt advanced disease, but who were still experiencing cancer growth. In Katz's group, 74% of those
men responded to the herbal therapy; 54% in Small's study.
"There is a subset of patients where the hormone therapy does not work and the cancer continues to grow. That's the form of
the disease that will eventually kill a patient," Katz said. The herbal treatment "is effective in those patients."
Some studies have also shown a reduction in pain and tumor
activity in men whose cancer has spread to the bone or brain.
The supplement's benefits may be another reason the product should not be sold over the counter, Thompson said. In an editorial
in the Journal of Urology, he questions whether consumers should have to pay as much as $450 a month for a potentially lifesaving therapy. Over-the-counter herbal remedies are rarely covered by
insurance plans. The supplement is sold in bottles of 80 capsules at $108. A typical regimen consists of six to nine capsules a day.
"The efficacy and toxicity of PC SPES should
be a call to action for elected officials to demand testing of agents…that by any other definition are truly pharmaceuticals," said Thompson.
According to a Good and Drug Administration
representative, the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act bars makers of supplements form saying that their products "cure, treat, prevent or mitigate disease." The FDA has the
authority to enforce that law, but has little additional power to regulate herbal supplements.
Efforts have been made to boost the regulators' authority-including a federal proposal that would
require manufacturers to supply information about warnings or cautions surrounding a supplement's use. But there has been no sustained movement in the United States to hold supplements to the same
testing and manufacturing laws as for drugs.
The federal government hasn't entirely ignored PC SPES. Earlier this month, the national Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, part
of the National Institutes of Health, authorized a study of the remedy at the Johns Hopkins Center for Cancer Complementary Medicine.
But the studies lag behind the powerful anecdotal evidence
for the therapy, which has been on the market since 1986.
Michael Cook, 49, was diagnosed at the age of 45 with prostate cancer that had already spread to his ribs and pelvis.
Cook, a
former magazine publisher who lives in Brea, was told that his only option was treatment with hormones, which he decided to forgo because studies have shown that hormones may work for only a limited
time. After trying numerous other alternative remedies, his prostate specific antigen had skyrocketed and his bone pain had moved to his back.
"Then I heard about PC SPES," Cook
said. After a month on the herbs, his antigen levels dropped from 80 to .2, he said.
"My doctor was stupefied by it," he said. "I've been on PC SPES for three years now,
and I seem to be in complete remission."
The blend of herbs was brought to this country by Allen X. Wang, a Chinese herbal doctor who learned the formula from a long line of healers in his
family, including a great-grandfather who ministered to the last Chinese emperor.
PC SPES is now manufactured exclusively by privately held BotanicLab, which is based in Brea. Although under
the law, supplement manufacturers can't claim to treat disease, BotanicLab acknowledges that "PC" stands for prostate cancer, "Spes" is Latin for hope.
--Taken from the Los Angeles Times, Saturday, October 21, 2000.
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